Following our call for nominations to the Trust Board, we were delighted that 15 Trust members submitted applications. As there were only six available seats on the board this year, an election was held and the results announced at our AGM at the beginning of July.

Congratulations Mel Hughes and Isaac Parnell who got re-elected and welcome aboard to our four new Board members, Michelle Chapman, Alex Smith, Paul Griffin and Mark McGann.

Pete Campbell, Peter Wright, Dave Rogers and previous Trust Chair Al Crane stepped down from last year’s Board. Myself and the Board would like to take this opportunity to personally thank all of them for all the hard work they have put into the last 12 months, it was a pleasure to work alongside them especially during last years ‘eventful’ season.

With Al Crane stepping down from the Trust, Alex Atack and Duncan Chapman got elected, by the rest of the Board, to take up a joint Chair role. Alex De Jongh will step into the Vice Chair role.

Merchandise

This season we will be stocking a range of Dulwich Hamlet team-wear, including this season’s home and away replica shirts. Replica shirts are priced £35 adults, £30 junior and £25 children. You also have the opportunity to place orders for infant replica shirts from 3 to 6 months up. Other team-wear items, including polo, hoodies and training shirts, will be available in the coming weeks.

We have taken delivery of our Promotion Roundabout printed t-shirt featuring the now famous Lordship Lane Palm tree. These are on sale today, priced £12 adults and £9 children.

Today you will see that our Mega-container has joined us at Imperial Fields. Thanks to the assistance of Jackie Watkins, we have managed to secure a location for the shop within the ground and we hope to soon have it fully functional on match days. Whilst one of our main goals is to see Dulwich Hamlet playing back at Champion Hill as soon as possible, we realised that it had become a necessity that the Mega-container was temporarily re-located to this ground.

Away Coach Travel

The Supporters’ Trust will be organising coaches this season for distant away games and fixtures that may be affected by rail closures. As we want to ensure that travelling to away matches is affordable for as many fans as possible, we will trailing subsidised coach travel. In the event that any profits are made on coach travel, the Trust will donate these between the 12th Man scheme and the Club’s charity partner for this season, Redthread (www.redthread.org.uk). The first of coach travelled to Bath City last Saturday and it proved very popular with supporters.

The decision for us to take over the coach travel was only made at the first meeting of our new board on 24th July. As we have not put on coach travel before, the preparation and organisation took longer than normal, as there were a number of factors that needed consideration and discussion. We are aware the announcement to run the coach to Bath may have come after a number of supporters had made other arrangements, in future we intend to confirm coaches at least two weeks prior to the fixture. We will be taking bookings for the next 3 coaches soon. Truro City (at Torquay), Gloucester City and Eastbourne Borough.

Fundraiser

On Thursday 16 August, The East Dulwich Tavern’s popular Pub Quiz raised funds in support of Dulwich Hamlet Football Club. The packed crowd helped raised just under £600, with every penny donated to the club via the 12th Man Scheme. Many thanks to the team at The East Dulwich Tavern, Dulwich supporter Clare Keeble for their organisation and to all the local businesses that donated prizes for that evening’s raffle.

Finally, several Altona 93 supporters, who were part of the organising committee who put on the fan events during our pre-season tour of Hamburg, will be attending today’s game. I think that everyone who made the trip would agree that they did an amazing job in ensuring that we had a weekend to remember and we are very pleased to welcome them today.

Enjoy the game!

Mark (Scolly) Scoltock